Apple's App Store Hits Six Digits; How Many Apps Do You Need?

Share

Apple's App Store Hits Six Digits; How Many Apps Do You Need?

Apple's App Store is now serving over 100,000 downloadable iPhone apps, the Cupertino, California company announced Wednesday. Overall, iPhone owners worldwide have downloaded over 2 billion apps to date, according to Apple.

“The App Store, now with over 100,000 applications available, is clearly a major differentiator for millions of iPhone and iPod touch customers around the world,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of marketing, in a press release. “The iPhone SDK created the first great platform for mobile applications and our customers are loving all of the amazing apps our developers are creating.”

Games appear to be the hottest items in the App Store. Of the 100,000 apps, only 16,000 titles are games, according to NPD Group. And yet, 65 percent of the 2 billion apps downloaded are games, according to Tal Kerret, co-founder of casual game solution provider Oberon Media.

Hitting six digits is an impressive milestone for Apple, especially when pitted against Google's Android platform, which is serving about 11,000 apps. But as the App Store continues to expand, an inevitable question arises: How many apps do you really need? My colleague Philip Elmer-DeWitt raised this point recently in a piece in which he argued 11,000 apps may very well be sufficient to serve Android users.

The key, then, for Apple and its rivals — Motorola, Verizon, Palm and Microsoft — should be to focus on marketing high quality, killer apps that will lure consumers toward their respective handsets and app stores. We're certain Apple's "There's an App for That" campaign is generating a lot more interest in the iPhone than press releases boasting the number of apps available for download.

iPhone owners: How many third-party apps do you have downloaded? I have 40.